Analysis of Flight Energy Variation of Small Solar UAVs Using Dynamic Soaring Technology

Dynamic soaring is an emerging flight range-extension technology that effectively reduces UAV's energy consumption by deriving wind energy from lateral gradient wind fields. Comparing with the small UAV's near the surface, the application of dynamic soaring technology in the high-altitude long-endurance flight requires the additional consideration of the influence of sustained side wind, the influence of the sideslip angle cannot be ignored. This puts higher requirements on the flight dynamics model. In this paper, the dynamic model for the high-altitude dynamic soaring based on the six-degree-of-freedom equation is modeled to replace the traditional mass point model; the energy change principle of the high-altitude dynamic gliding is derived; the effect of the high-altitude wind field on the dynamic soaring UAV is analyzed; and the way to get optimal wind field energy acquisition and energy saving efficiency are analyzed. The results show that the dynamics model based on the six-degree-of-freedom equation can more realistically reflect at high altitude; the application of dynamic soaring can effectively improve the range of the high-altitude UAV; the wind direction at high-altitude wind field has a significant effect on the dynamic soaring efficiency.

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Simulation Training System for Parafoil Motion Controller Based on Actor–Critic RL Approach

He,

Liu,

Zhao

et al. 2024

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The unique ram air aerodynamic shape and control rope pulling course of the parafoil system make it difficult to realize its precise control. At present, the commonly used control methods of the parafoil system include proportional–integral–derivative (PID) control, model predictive control, and adaptive control. The control precision of PID control and model predictive control is low, while the adaptive control has the problems of complexity and high cost. This study proposes a new method to improve the control precision of the parafoil system by establishing a parafoil motion simulation training system that trains the neural network controllers based on actor–critic reinforcement learning (RL). Simulation results verify the feasibility of the proposed parafoil motion-control-simulation training system. Furthermore, the test results of the real flight experiment based on the motion controller trained by the proximal policy optimization (PPO) algorithm are presented, which are close to the simulation results.

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Analysis of Flight Energy Variation of Small Solar UAVs Using Dynamic Soaring Technology

Cited by 3 publications

References 7 publications

Research on a New Energy Extracting Method of Dynamic Soaring from Shear Wind

Research on a New Energy Extracting Method of Dynamic Soaring from Shear Wind

Exploration of high-altitude dynamic soaring based on six-degree-of-freedom model

Simulation Training System for Parafoil Motion Controller Based on Actor–Critic RL Approach

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